Today in Baldur’s Gate 3, I met Gremishkas. I don’t recommend it.
These cat-like creatures are introduced once you reach Rosymorn Monastery. They’re the first monsters I’ve encountered in the game that are “allergic” to magic, and winning the resulting fight felt like activating a Nuzlocke challenge for a single battle.
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What the game means by “allergic” is that Gremishkas react to spells being used in their vicinity like Gremlins react to being fed after midnight. With plenty of Magic Missiles at my disposal, I assumed I could exterminate the whole posse before anything bad could happen. I was very wrong.
Using a single spell causes all the Gremishkas in the area to become “unstable.” Their bodies start glitching, and soon, they’ve evolved from kitten to cougar. With each evolution comes an increase in HP. And, if you wait long enough to dispatch them, you’ll be dealing with a pack of apex predators. Before I could do anything, they had taken my whole party down.
It turned out that the composition I had been running — my Githyanki wizard player character, Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach — was a bad match for this encounter. So, I headed back to camp, benched Gale, and pulled Astarion into the game after a few days lounging in his tent. He was delighted.
On this second try, Astarion’s sneaky stabs and 100-percent-sure-to-hit bloodsucking bites allowed me to make it most of the way through the battle with ease. I was so close to wrapping it up that I thought, “I’ve got them on the ropes. Surely,nowI can start using magic.” But, to my surprise, as soon as the Magic Missiles had left my staff, one of the remaining Gremishkas instantly jumped from kitten stage to cougar stage. That’s not how this is supposed to work!
Annoyed, I loaded my save right outside the room and headed back in. This time, I was fully committed to not using any magic at all. When you’ve been playing as a wizard with another wizard in your party, that can be a tall order. I had to constantly remind myself not to go for those familiar icons on the hot bar. It felt extremely counterintuitive.
But, once the battle started, I positioned Karlach on a stack of boxes above the fray and, each turn, had her shoot down at the horde of Gremishkas. I placed Astarion behind the tower of crates, and for some reason, the Gremishkas largely ignored him, too. Before I knew it, the battle was over. I hadn’t cast a single spell, and none of my feline foes had grown out of the easy-to-manage kitten stage.
It was just one encounter, but it reminded me how fun it can be when a game forces you to change up your strategy. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a top-tier RPG, in part because each encounter is unique. It can throw a few Gremishkas at me without the game having to drastically change to accommodate them. It’s just one encounter, but it forced me to reconsider the game when I began to feel comfortable.
